Printed Material

"A Crostick" Poem Printed in the Gazette

Date:	June 6, 1787
Publisher:	Hampshire Gazette

About this artifact

A crostick is a poem that forms a vertical word from the first letters of each line. In this poem, the word "INSURGENTS" is formed with a verse that has nothing good to say about these men. The Regulators are called vengeful, seditious, jail-birds, and debtors who choose not to pay. The writer says that this word is not explained by Johnson or Bayley (Bailey). The first edition of Samuel Johnson's dictionary was published in 1755. Nathan Bailey first published his in 1736. These would have been the most commonly used dictionaries in the 1780's.